MetaFilter posts tagged with mines

“So happens this dog achieved the rank of colonel in the United States Army.”

grobstein — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:12:25 -0800

They were in the stairwell that led down to the commode, a dangerous place in its time, the Grand Central Station Men’s, but for different reasons. I saw the dirt tracks leading there, and I left the monkeys in the chandelier and followed them. I kept to the tracks careful as I could. There were pits and corrugations everywhere in the old tile, any one of which could hide a man killing gob of explosive. At my back I heard Spot complain: “Leave ‘em be, Blacks. We’ve warned ‘em, ain’t we? If they blow themselves up, it ain’t on us.”

UXO, BOMB DOG by Eliot Fintushel (single-link short fiction)

Fire and Ice underground

Kirth Gerson — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:47:20 -0800

Weird scenes inside the ~~gold~~ mica mines Russians photograph and play in an abandoned mine.

Trespassed Against: Nickel Mines, One Year Later

Toekneesan — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 07:33:39 -0800

"My first day on the job was the Amish school shooting at Nickel Mines in Lancaster County, Pa. in October of 2006. Here is some video of what I saw that day." Raw footage from that terrible day, recently posted to YouTube. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 It's been a little over a year since a milk truck driver walked into the one room school in Nickel Mines Pennsylvania and shot ten girls, killing five, finally turning the gun on himself. Half of the seventy-five attendees at the killer's funeral were Amish and included parents of the victims. The week after it happened the community set up two funds to help the surviving families, one for the families of the girls, one for the the children of the shooter. Forgiveness is a central part of the Amish belief system, taking the sermon on the mount as Christ's direct and specific description of how to live in the world. This includes the line from the Lord's Prayer: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Other resources: NPR on the anniversary and about a pretzel company's founders and their efforts to help. Three leading Anabaptist scholars have just published a book about the incident, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy. Excerpts from that book. The Amish FAQ page from the Young Center for Anabaptists and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. The anniversary covered by the local paper.

damn hippies

Tryptophan-5ht — Mon, 15 May 2006 01:41:49 -0800

bomb sniffing flowers. Danish, Canadian and U.S. scientists are closing in on a genetically engineered plant that will send up a floral signal: “DANGER—land mines below." Scientists in Denmark have been tinkering with Arabidopsis thaliana [...] to produce a plant [that] will turn a warning red whenever close to a land mine.” Arabidopsis can be genetically sensitized to the nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) that leaches from buried explosives.

The Ted Kierscey Collection

Gator — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:15:33 -0800

The Narrow Gauge Circle hosts, among other fine features, the Ted Kierscey Collection -- page after page after page of historical photographs of Colorado's railroad and mining towns.

My favorite government agency

the Real Dan — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:27:47 -0800

More than 16,000 photos related to the USGS from the years 1868 through 1992 are now available online where they may be easily searched, viewed, and downloaded free of charge. These are old stereo pairs, sites drowned by dams, geologists and surveyers in horse drawn wagons, petroglyphs, national parks, Mount St. Helens, John Wesley Powell, hoodoos, arches, ruins, mines...

Damned mines

elpapacito — Sat, 28 Feb 2004 11:22:34 -0800

Current U.S. Administration chooses "smart anti-personnel mines" versus "dumb mines".The U.S. military will stop using always-armed, live landmines after 2010. Some may appreciate this move as a valid step toward..more "intelligent" mines, others disagree. More links inside.

Salt Mine Under Detroit

NortonDC — Fri, 13 Jun 2003 08:15:18 -0800

The history of the salt mine under the city of Detroit. Mined until 1983.

From Beneath You, It Devours.

jonson — Sat, 11 Jan 2003 10:10:14 -0800

Centralia, PA is a small town on top of rich, seemingly inexhaustible coal reserves in rural Pennsylvania. In May of 1962, an above ground fire ignited these underground coal mines, and the fires have burned ever since, for forty years straight. The towns population (and landscape) have been decimated. More info here.

The Self-Healing Minefield

Armitage Shanks — Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:33:45 -0800

The Self-Healing Minefield From the current Village Voice: "Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf computer chips and 'healing' software, the networked minefield detects rude attempts to clear it, deduces which parts of itself have been removed, and signals its remaining munitions to close the hole using best-fit mathematics."

Bonus ubertasteless Flash animation courtesy of DARPA here. Color me fascinated and repulsed in equal measure.

twistedonion — Thu, 21 Jun 2001 09:12:09 -0800

Minesweeper - It offends me so ban it!